Tár

Yes, we could do that every episode, but it would have been very, very inappropriate until episode 421, which we recorded the day before the death of Tim Curry.

And therefore, we were maybe a bit critical of two of Tim Curry's most beloved films.

Yes, we didn't know when we were slagging off both Rocky Horror Picture Show and Clue that he was going to pop his clogs on the day of release.

We didn't say he was bad at them.

Anyway, he's great in it.

Always brought a performance.

So no disrespect to Tim Curry, even if he was in some shit films.

We're both fans of his attitude and his work.

While you were taking your mid-afternoon siesta, I learned something.

You know the director Todd Field? Who directed Tar? Directed Tar, directed...

Eyes Wide Shut.

He didn't direct Eyes

Oh, oh, oh, oh.

Todd Haynes.

Todd Field directed Tar.

Fun fact, did you know that he created Big League Chew?

Yes, Cate

Blanchett and the German actress Nina Haas, who worked together, of course, in the much-laurelled movie Tar, and now they're working on stage together in this kind of extraordinary thing called Electra Persona, which, if anyone thinks that the theater is being dumbed down, this is proof that it isn't.

It's very rigorous, very austere.

It mashes up Sophocles' tragedy about Electra and Clytemnestra with Ingmar Bergman's 1966 movie about an actress who becomes mute during a performance of Electra and the nurse who tends to her.

The two performers decide who's going to play who because of a coin toss at the start of the show.

I have to say it's wonderfully audacious.

It's a solo play.

Jodie Comer did it here in London and in New York.

What was really interesting for me was actually I've done acting, but as a perk.

outside of academia because academia is so cerebral that acting is actually the best thing you can do when you're an academic because you don't think you actually work on the subtext so the way i prepared is actually a year ago we had never met a year ago 12 months ago we had never met and i was in paris we had met on zoom we had seen each other remotely and they had answered all my questions about her like you know what does she eat uh i remember you gave me uh pointers they oh yeah no they give me that's a funny one they gave me oh if you want like ideas of characters in cinema that we want you to be like it's like Isabelle Huppert in The Piano Teacher and then Cate Blanchett in Tar I was like

Easy peasy.

What else? So here I am watching Tar, which I hadn't seen, and re-watching The Piano Teacher.

And you know these characters? I was like, so I call them, and I'm like, what's my sexual problem? Do I have like some, am I a sadomasochist? What is the thing? What is the deal there? And they say, oh, you're an AI.

So I was like, oh, well, that's a relief, yeah? And then I went on thinking, like, what does an AI do? How does she make up or doesn't make up, doesn't care about her look? You know, all of these kind of detail where you're like, OK, do I know AI like people in academia? Absolutely.

...

Glenn Close to be Lydia Tár.

Like, I just-

Mm-hmm

He's great in that.

How about you? You're going to say Tar, aren't you? I'm going to say Tar.

Yeah, I'm going to say Tar.

I absolutely love Tar.

I have soft spot for all those Lord of the Rings films, but Tar, I think, is remarkable.

I haven't seen it since the cinema, but I'm jewellery watch.

I love Tar.

She's so brilliant.

Yeah.

When, when I saw the trailer for this, um, uh, it's hard not to like see like the, the classical musician struggling type thing and like think of the movie Tar that came out a few years ago of Cate Blanchett.

Mm-hmm.

I hope that This is different than that.

Hmm

... generally a pretty good follow, uh, you know, uh, comparison you can make because it's her, Kidman for Being the Ricardos, Blanchett for Tár, Lily Gladstone for Killers of the Flower Moon, and Fernanda Torres for I'm Still Here.

So five years in a row, uh, they just don't, uh, uh-

But-